Mutagen

Day 341 - 1:23 PM - Reclaimed City Airspace, Reclaimed City, Ruins of Tokyo

The final round finally began a war between six factions and their alliances.

The alliance between the Reclaimed City, Evernight, and the Auraboros Japan Branch was on the defensive. 

The second alliance would be between the [Infected] and the [Mechids]. It was not exactly an alliance, but since these creatures tend to ignore one another, their alliance was technical.

And lastly, the Serpent God with the [Miasmic Residues].

With all these forces present in this battle, the Reclaimed City had fully turned into a battleground.

And with the return of the Reclaimed City Alliance to the battle, their entry was with a miracle.

The flames of the Demon Deity that burned the majority of the Reclaimed City were extinguished by the wall of water the Priestess controlled. It also washed away the [Miasmic Residues] that lurked with the burnt ruins of the Toyosu and Harumi.

Furthermore, the wall of water also disabled the Serpent God's fire breath on the floating vessel in the sky.

Following the defensive counterattack, the Empress showed her prowess, turning into a giant nine-tailed golden fox through [Manifestation]. The golden fox, about seven meters tall and about twenty meters from head to the tip of her longest tail, ran to the sky with her paws adorned with golden flames.

Comparing their sizes, the Empress was still smaller compared to the hundreds of meters long Serpent God. She was even smaller than the size that the heads of the Serpent God could open their mouths.

The Serpent God could surely swallow the Empress in one go, even with her current gigantic size. But that was only possible if it was able to capture the Empress first.

While the Serpent God was superior in size, the Empress was much superior in speed. Running through the sky, she zigzagged and evaded the different incoming attacks the Serpent God could dish out. Circling around the giant snake, the Empress spewed golden flames, exhibiting higher temperatures than the flames the Serpent God had shown so far.

The golden flames enveloped the back of the Serpent God.

ROOOAR!!!

The Serpent God roared as it felt the heat searing on its back. It ignored the explosions coming from the artilleries of the Defense Forces and forcefully turned its head at the attacker from behind.

ROOOOAR!!!

In one roar, eight different attacks flew at the Empress. A lightning bolt, a fireball, a wind spiral, a water spew, an earthen pillar, a light beam, a dark veil, and a poison breath, the Serpent God released attacks of different attributes at the same time.

Left without a choice to defend, the Empress kicked the air and retreated. The attacks converged on where she hovered before, creating a massive elemental explosion.

BAM!!!

All of a sudden, the Serpent God felt a massive impact on its body. It froze before a part of its body got pushed by the impact.

It turned to see what caused it pain and saw a giant pillar of stone rising from the ruins below and smashing under its belly several hundred meters in the sky.

The Serpent God was confused for a moment. It then moved its body, trying to fly away from the giant pillar that caused it pain. However, the earthen pillar was suddenly covered in greenery, instantly turning it into a green pillar. It was before parts of the pillar crumbled, showing giant vines that grew out to latch around the Serpent God's body.

In that instant, the nearest part of the Serpent God's body became entangled with giant vines. The vines tried to restrict its movements in the sky or even pull it from the sky into the ground.

But that would not be so easy.

ROOOOARR!!!

The Serpent God spewed flames and poison on the vines and on the pillar. Without resistance, the vines withered and burned to ashes. And with a flick of its tail, the Serpent God effortlessly destroyed the earthen pillar.

It then faced the Empress once again, wary about the golden flames.

But the Empress was not the only enemy of the Serpent God. After the previous shelling, the Warship Susanoo finished loading its special shells.

And, CRACKLE!

An explosion followed by massive amounts of electricity rattled the Serpent God, who turned its back on the Defense Forces.

And then, CHOMP!

Something latched onto the Serpent God's body, trying to bite off its scales. A [Infected] got thrown to the sky and managed to grab onto the Serpent God's body. Unfortunately for the lucky nuisance, the massive artillery explosions could not even leave a scratch on the scales, not to mention a mere nonmutated [Infected's] teeth.

With a little wiggle from the Serpent God, or maybe just the shaking from all the attacks it was receiving, that [Infected's] luck turned into bad luck as it fell to the ruins below and crashed on top of one of the buildings with quite a moist splat.

Atop The Cube, Mark and Mei watched the battle, observing the Serpent God and the Empress while also paying attention to the surroundings.

Mark had a frown on his eyebrows behind his helmet.

The attacks the Serpent God was receiving were causing it pain. That was, without a doubt. It was roaring at every pain it felt and would even try to retaliate against the enemy that caused it.

However, if one was to look at the Serpent God closely, its scales were barely even scratched. The pain it was receiving might just be akin to stubbing a toe at the corner of the table. Yes, it was painful. But the damage was really minimal.

Killing the Serpent God this way would take time, even if the Empress and the Priestess, along with the Defense Forces, were able to coordinate their attacks.

Mark turned his eyes to the Defense Forces, especially the warship and the mecha-like armors standing on the frontlines. It looked like the Reclaimed City still had its own cards to play. And to say, they looked cool in the eyes of an Otaku. However, he could not help but notice how the designs of these machines were more against the [Infected] and the [Mechids]. Against a being like the Serpent God, it was already surprising that they managed to hold on.

The designs aside, Mark suddenly had an absurd thought. He wondered if he could get the government to share the blueprints of those mech armors in exchange for his help to the Reclaimed City.

But when Mark had thought of those things, he heard a voice behind him.

"Gege, please focus."

Mei uttered with a sigh.

Mark shrugged. His wife was very perceptive.

Now back from his untimely thoughts, Mark looked at the ruins below. The Priestess really erased the fires from Gar'Vlam's death. Furthermore, while the water washed away the [Miasmic Residues], the water barely caused any substantial damage to the remaining structures within the ruins. It was quite a miracle, really.

Unfortunately, the results of the water wall were not all positive. Without the flames to hinder and the [Miasmic Residues] to distract them, the [Infected] thrown into the ruins turned their sights unto the Defense Line in Ariake. It was unsurprising. The [Infected] became attracted to the only place with living humans, not to mention the noise from the artillery bombardment.

The worst part was that the [Infected] in the western areas were gathering more of their kind to throw into the ruins of the Reclaimed City. Mark could see the [Infected] gathering at every screech that the flesh-dressed [Infected] did. This time, there were now around several thousands of [Infected] gathering in that area. It was quite a terrifying horde of both mutated and nonmutated [Infected].

And on the west side, the [Mechids] were also pushing on. The number of the [Miasmic Residues] that blocked their way decreased, allowing them to move closer to the center of Toyosu. The only good thing was that the number of [Mechids] that landed on Earth was limited, to begin with. Their number would not explosively increase like the [Infected]. Still, they were a danger to consider. Furthermore, the [Mechids] also seemed to be trying to head to Ariake, considering their flying forces already went first.

With the [Infected] and the [Mechids] setting their sights on Ariake, the defensive battle on the frontlines ignited anew.

And if that was not enough, there was also another.

"Watch out! The Goo Creatures are already appearing below!"

The soldiers noticed. The [Miasmic Residue] under the water had already reached the waters around Ariake.

Fortunately, coastal areas and riverbanks around Ariake had raised walls and water barriers. It stopped the [Miasmic Residues] manifesting directly into the island's coasts. Nonetheless, the [Miasmic Residues] would not stop because of the walls. They would try to find a way, whether to climb it like sticky slime or try to seep into any hole in the wall they could find. 

"Sh*t!" The field commander cursed. "Avoid using explosives on the Goo Creatures below! We can't cause the walls to collapse!"

Everyone knew how hard to fight the [Miasmic Residues] without explosives. However, what could they do now?

"Let us deal with those."

Someone spoke to the field commander.

"Ren-sama? Do you have a solution? If you have, please do."

The field commander asked Ren, who spoke out.

But in turn, Ren looked behind her. There was a foreigner standing there.

The soldiers looked at the same man. Was he African? Or a Black American? The soldiers could only speculate. After all, while many people in the West had a hard time distinguishing people from the East, vice versa was also true.

But man's origin was not the issue here. As Ren urged their new helper, the man stood by the riverbank under everyone's confused eyes.

And there, the man stretched out his hands.

The ground began to shake, to everyone's surprise. The people all began to panic due to the sudden event. But it was not long for the soldiers that tried to hold unto the coastal barriers to stabilize themselves what was happening.

Those that saw what was happening had their eyes widened with shock. It was because the seabed was rising from the water. The rising seabed began turning sturdy solid before forming walls outside the coastal barriers, making it twice thicker. The seabed wall also formed a safe rampart outside the coastal barrier. It also pushed the [Miasmic Residues] away from the coastal barrier.

Only then the foreigner lowered his hands that the formation of the seabed wall and the earthquake stopped.

Now, everyone looked at the man as if they were looking at a Deity.

"Thank you, Sir Morgan."

Ren thanked their helper in English.

"It's fine. It's Boss who tasked me to help you here."

Louis Morgan humbly replied, saying that the credit belonged to his Boss.

"Just accept their gratitude!" Someone chimed in and grabbed Louis on his shoulder. "Being too humble could also become insulting, you know."

"Sir Berrak..." Louis sighed as he looked at the bearded man. "I'm just like this. Can you give me a little break?"

"Okay, okay." Berrak raised his hands away from Louis. "In any case, I'll do my work too."

Berrak faced the bridge connected to Toyosu. The [Infected] horde was coming and was already on the other side.

But before everything else, Berrak turned to Ren.

"Miss, better tell these people not to point their guns."

"Yes."

Ren nodded and proceeded to tell the soldiers.

There, Berrak smiled as he casually created glowing magic circles on the ground, five circles to be exact.

And there was another bout of surprise for the audience as those circles summoned five different beasts out of nowhere.

There were two five-meter stone golems, one eagle-sized firebird, one bull-sized steel boar, and the last was a two-tailed black cat.

The summons immediately took the defensive positions on the bridge, with the golems creating a wall at both sides, leaving an opening between where the boar stood.

With Berrak present, the defense of the bridge became much safer for the soldiers.

It was not only Louis and Berrak that the people here saw unfamiliar. There were also three maid-dressed women, a teenage girl with several animals with her, a pair of beautiful women, and a girl with purple hair. And with them were the little girls known to be members of the Evernight Group.

"Ren-sama..." The Field Commander turned to Ren. "Who are these people?"

That was a question everyone around wanted to ask. The people around them all looked at Ren, waiting for her answer.

And Ren gave a sigh.

"People from the Evernight. A few of their elites, should I say. They came here to help us as per their leader's instructions."

Those that heard the answer were appalled. Was not the Evernight Group just a strange group with their family members? But then, what the hell were these people?

It was when the fast thinkers realized that Evernight might not just be a small group of [Freelancers] but an organization rivaling territorial groups or might even be stronger.

After all, from the speech of the Prime Minister, the name Evernight was mentioned as a member of the primary forces standing beside the Auraboros.